<p>Let's forgo the degrees that will give you a job, or one would think, such as in engineering, medical field (in any capacity), and accounting. Is a college degree in something that doesn't give you any job skills such as a degree in English or history usefull? Are kids and or adults that are going to college really going to earn more than someone at the same age or younger who only has a high school diploma, ged, or was a high school dropout?</p>
<p>Let's say that you have a child and this child graduated in 2005 with a degree in liberal arts field such as history but never has once used that degree, doesn't have any skills, has never made above 21,000K, and could still be possibly living at home. What then? What can you about the investment you made in helping to pay for your child's education at a college/university? Was it worth if for your child to get a degree that has no use?</p>
<p>I bring up this point because I read articles all the time on how a college degree is worth it and that someone with a degree with make more than someone who just has a high school diploma (outside the engineering, accounting medical fields which they will make more than one with just a high school diploma). But when you have someone in the example above, can't you say the degree was not worth the time, money, and commitment, and that the child would have been better off either going to learn a trade or just working after high school?</p>
<p>Maybe a degree in just about anything would have been fine, but in today's times it doesn't seem like it's worth anything if one ends up in the scenario above.</p>
<p>People with liberal arts/nonspecialized degrees may have a harder time developing skills and getting a career going, at least in some instances, but once they establish a career path for themselves, the degree will be valuable.</p>
<p>Your 2005 graduate may still be floundering somewhat in 2011, but at some point, he or she will almost certainly get a job that will lead to other jobs in the same field, thus creating a career path. At various points along that path, this person will apply for jobs. In some cases, employers will not even consider a job applicant who does not have a college degree. The degree may be in an irrelevant field, but it’s still a requirement for the job.</p>
<p>I used to work at a company that employed many people to do conference planning. This is a type of work that you learn how to do on the job; it’s rare for anyone to have a college degree that directly relates to this type of work. When the company advertised for new personnel for the conference planning department, they were willing to hire both college graduates and non-graduates for the entry level position of conference assistant. But only those conference assistants with degrees could be promoted later to the better-paying jobs of conference planner or senior conference planner. Those without degrees would stay assistants forever (and in fact, one person without a degree had been an assistant for more than a decade).</p>
<p>Similar situations exist in other lines of work. In many career paths, at some point, you face a barrier if you don’t have a college degree.</p>
<p>I do a lot of hiring (and have done so for many, many years).</p>
<p>It’s hard enough to get hired <em>with</em> a college degree.
Without one, it’s close to impossible.
(my firm will not consider your resume without one, for example).</p>
Or we could say your child graduated with a history degree in 2005, was hired by a consulting firm and makes $100K/year. Your question is based purely on supposition.</p>
<p>MOST of the time it is worthwhile, because it can open some doors. Also, what can most kids do between the ages of 18-22 that is more worthwhile and prepare them for job opportunities? For those kids who do find something that fits that category, by all means they should do it. But other than a gap year or two pursuing something other than an education, most kids are not going to make good use of that time. </p>
<p>However, it has become too much of an automatic shuffling of kids onto the college train with no regard as to the readiness, willingness to continue higher education. A lot of kids could use a bit of growing up before going on to college. Sometimes parents are so afraid that with the loss of momentum to apply to school, their kids will not go on to college and kids end up going with absolutely no interest in continuing with their studies. For many kids, a few years of maturation in the work place, military, community service would make them realize the place education would have in their lives and what doors it would open instead of automatically being sent to college.</p>
<p>In most job situations having a college degree doesn’t automatically get you anything. It entitles you to absolutely nothing. What having a degree means is you won’t be held back for NOT having one.</p>
<p>Whether it’s for hiring or promotion, there is a list of qualifications they are looking for. And if college degree is on that list (and for many jobs it is), then not being able to check the box next to College Degree is going to be a big minus.</p>
<p>Excellent! This is what I told my college boys…maybe not quite so eloquently. The vast majority of people need to bust butt for first “career” jobs…the degree prevents you from being held back as you scale through jobs.</p>
<p>Or the degree itself can be a burden for someone who is applying for jobs that require a high school diploma/ged such as a janitor or a retail position such as a cashier after they’ve come to realize the degree they have won’t do anything and then aren’t hired for those kinds of jobs because they’re now over qualified. </p>
<p>They could put they only have a high school dimploma on the application for those jobs, but they would be lying and that could come back to haunt them in the future.</p>
<p>I’ve heard many people say who are in their late 40’s -up that they couldn’t have the jobs they have now or held before, if they applied again, because they lack a college degree. Because of the lack of education in many high schools, I see associate degrees wanted for entry level receptionists for instance. I’m told by a friend in Human Resources, it’s because many employers are finding just a high school diploma doesn’t guarantee the employee can spell or write a letter or memo. Many job seekers will have others do their online application so she also has them do a paper application on site. </p>
<p>I don’t think you always need a college degree but it can help. My nephew is doing very well without one in the FBI but he can only go so far up the ladder.</p>
<p>In some finer retail establishments, having a college degree is actually a help. It can also smooth and speed the way into management positions (ditto for hotel chain work). Obviously you don’t need a college degree to work in retail, and it’s not ideal to graduate and still be working a cashier or store clerk, but especially with the economy being bad it’s happening more often for new grads. Even if a degree is not in a major that is clearly linked to a job, having a degree can do a lot for you and give you some more choices in life than you would otherwise have.</p>
<p>I believe that anyone who thinks a degree like English or history or fill-in-the-blank does not provide any ‘job skills’ is likely someone who never pursued such a degree. Most of us have not a club about what is actually learned- and how one’s brain is shaped- by four years of a particular college education or major. I speak as a professor of business, I should add.</p>
<p>Sure, my finance students can do all kinds of financial calculations, great for that first job but then, big whoop. Students from less obviously vocationally-tied degrees may have many stronger cognitive abilities that are not so obvious. Some degrees, more than othesr, provide you with a stronger ability to analyze and synthesize complex information, make cogent arguments, effectively communicate, identify the main point among a lot of of noise. Some moreso than others advance our abstract reasoning skills. Some moreso than others, make you far more aware and in tuned with the invisible social world, or the larger world surrounding us- with a very different, big picture perspective of past and present. Oh sure, math “looks hard” so it must mean someone has learned something…or some degrees have more of a “you have now learned how to do X” so they seem to point more directly at practical job skills…but just because someone has a degree involving words, or in learning more abstract quantitative or qualitative principles, doesn’t remotely make the degree ‘easy’ nor suggest one did not develop tremendously over four years of higher education. All of this mental development and ability to THINK and overall EDUCATION is extremely useful to use in many/most future careers. Thankfully most of us who are good at the technical stuff move on via promotion to non technical positions that requires us to use abstract reasoning skills, people skills, and strategic skills. The engineer becomes a manager, the software designer runs his own business, the doctor ends up managing an HMO…and so it goes. </p>
<p>And let us not forget the signalling effect of a degree. Even if a degree is not directly related to a job post, many many employers want to teach you the ropes anyways. A degree shows you can work hard, work toward goals, are achievement oriented, maybe smart, maybe super smart. It may show you are creative, are well-read, or care about something. Many employers want to teach you what you need for the job so the actual technical skills you picked up college are not that relevant.</p>
<p>I have one of those liberal arts degrees that according to you does not prepare you for any job. I happen to work in IT. It wasn’t a straight path but one job led to another and another etc. In my position a degree is required, but it doesn’t need to be an IT degree. One software company I work with said that they tend to hire graduates with music degrees, because they said those graduates can be trained for the software skills necessary, but they have found they can’t train the computer science grads to have people skills!</p>
<p>I’d be more concerned about whether a degree in a job-related skill would be useful 10 years from now. The shelf-life of technical skills is now so brief that narrowly-focused career prep degrees are likely to get you only an entry-level position is a field - not necessarily career advancement for a lifetime. It’s the skills of communicating, reasoning, and drawing insights from disparate fields to create new understandings that never become outdated. Those are skills for leadership and career advancement, and those are the skills you’ll likely develop to a grater extent in English or History study than in a technical field.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Honestly . . . you’re concerned that a college degree might prove to be an impediment to your career goal of being a janitor or cashier?</p>
<p>“Honestly . . . you’re concerned that a college degree might prove to be an impediment to your career goal of being a janitor or cashier?”</p>
<p>Nope, just saying after people can’t find a job in their field or can’t find a job that requires any degree degree and are desperate for any type of job they’ll apply for anything such as a cashier or a janitor position. Then they find out they can’t get those kids of jobs because they’re now overqualified. Then one can safely say the college degree in a waste.</p>
<p>“I believe that anyone who thinks a degree like English or history or fill-in-the-blank does not provide any ‘job skills’ is likely someone who never pursued such a degree.”</p>
<p>I have a degree in history and it hasn’t given me any marketable skills. From the employers who have paid me 7 to 9 dollars an hour, they could have cared less if one had a college degree or not, and one of them even said so.</p>
<p>If you are studying for a liberal arts degree, you are there to get an education. You should be getting your marketable job skills on the side – through paid work or internships, or , taking skill-related courses offered at your college, at a community college, or on-line to acquire specific skills. Basically you want to have familiarity with the various computer software programs that are commonly used in your field, and that is the sort of stuff that’s pretty easy to pick up one way or another – and then gain some experience at a functional level.</p>
<p>As a Women’s Studies major, I didn’t come out with obvious marketing skills. I did, however, come out with the ability to write, form solid arguments, weigh the merits of an argument, organize and manage my time and prioroties. I learned to lead groups and work well independently. When I couldn’t find a jo using my major, I worked for little money in a banking call center starting out. I ended up managing the training department and running projects for the department within a few years. It is how you use those skills once you are in the door. As this economy continues to improve, it is possible that you need a career coach to help you get to the next level. Once you are out in the corporate world, the ways to move up from entry level jobs tend to be through management or projects. I always pick project team members from their attitude, work performance and wrting/communication abilities. Show those in charge that you have those abilities and look for opportunities.</p>
<p>While it’s true the a college degree is not a golden ticket to a secure middle-class life, it is often a prerequisite for it. Far more doors are closed to someone without a college degree than are closed to someone with one. There are many employers who use the B.A. as a gatekeeping device. I have talked to older returning students at my college who are back because they have experienced firsthand the lack of options for someone without a degree. They have all, without exception, said that they wish they had gotten their degree earlier, because it’s much harder to finish college when you have family and economic responsibilities in your 30s and 40s than it is to do so in your (relatively) unencumbered 20s.</p>
<p>Calmom said it in post #16, although I would expand on it to say you go to college in ANY major TO GET AN EDUCATION. It doesn’t matter if you work a day in your life, you have the knowledge that no one can take from you. College may give you job skills, but it gives you far more in growth and thinking skills. This applies to any humanities, social science, math, science, engineering… degree. Intangibles.</p>
<p>posting such a question on THIS site is like asking a car salesman if you should buy a new car. parents here are true believers in the value of higher education, and more than a few support the idea that education for its own sake is worthwhile. maybe true once, but is it really cost-effective for everyone today? and is it necessarily progressive personally? conventional wisdom on this question has been positive, and i guess i still subscribe to it within certain limits. however, i also know lots of ways to make a living besides sitting at a desk, ways that may in fact be more active (healthier), life-centered (more personally interesting), and not easily off-shored (more secure). as for personal development, there have been and will continue to be people like eric hoffer who think outside the box of institutionalized learning. </p>
<p>people i know without college educations have been pretty successful working, among other things, for themselves or as employees of government unions. one guy makes a few hundred grand a year selling hotdogs and ice cream at fairs and festivals. another is a garbage man who will retire in about 4 years on 75 grand a year, with lifetime benefits. to be sure these are not rocket science jobs, but these people have a lot of personal freedom, do or study what they like, and in a way or somewhat amuised by the notion that they have somehow suffered in life because they “never went to college”. and lots of college degrees make for better hobbies than subjects of formalized study at 40 grand per.</p>
<p>the old american adage about success in business is to “find a need and fill it”. the college grad likely thinks this means you have to invent a better mousetrap, and that it requires a big corporation with research and marketing departments. but a more independent view is that you simply need to know what someone is needs/wants/uses, and figure out how you can provide it yourself.</p>